Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Last January, in an article about Abby Brockway, John Fife was
quoted as saying that Presbyterians are good at reform (in fact we are
legendary for it), good at charity (we are a shirt-off-our backs denomination),
good at advocacy (we are bright, articulate, politically savvy people) and it
isn’t enough. He says we have to take the next step and resist.
Rick Ufford-Chase is leading the way with his new book entitled Faithful
Resistance. Both moderators of PC(USA) are urging us to a new level
of engaging the problems that thwart our earth. Furthermore, at our last
PEC conference, Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson challenged us to get out into
the streets.

As the Advocacy arm of Presbyterians for Earth Care looks toward
the next conference in Portland, Oregon, it wants to seriously consider the admonitions of these church
leaders. It is no longer good enough to come together and speak/listen to
the issues. We already know the issues, don’t we? Let us then
explore the next step—let’s learn resistance. The people who taught John
Fife and Rick Ufford-Chase flowed over the southern border of our
country. The teachers we can listen to and act with in Oregon are waiting
for us to come and experience their challenges.

For the last two years we have focused on water and how it has
been changed by the use of fossil fuels. Now we want to take that lens
and turn it just slightly. Those who can teach about resistance live by
the rising waters, the growing deserts that lack water, the places where the
water from their tap smells of gas, places where dams have stopped the fish
from returning, places where ice no longer forms in the winter to buffer their
communities from the battering of fierce storms. It is their stories that
we must hear and their directions we must take. We have skin that
is not the same color as theirs. We have privileges that distance us from
the realities of their lives. They have much to teach us, we have much to
learn. Resisting together, respecting, finding the common ground of our
shared humanity—that is the next step.

Monday, August 29, 2016

It began as an easy, hazy,
sultry but relaxing evening in late July 2016. My husband and I were enjoying a
tasty dinner with good friends at a quaint, stone- walled restaurant in
historic Ellicott City, Maryland. A block away the Tiber and Hudson creeks
converged and joined to form the Patapsco River, where three Quakers, the Ellicott brothers, established
a community by 1775, and harnessed the energy of the river to provide energy
for their flour and lumber mills, halfway between Baltimore and Washington,
DC.

Then,
within an hour that night, everything in Ellicott City changed. The rain came
in torrents. For the next two hours the sky poured 6 ½ inches of rain, a once
in a 1,000 years storm. The once-peaceful scene on Main Street became the channel
of a raging flood 15 feet deep, which undermined the street and sidewalks, destroyed
ten buildings and took two lives.

The
storm, in its wake, left cars, homes, businesses and livelihoods in broken
bits. My husband and I were among the
lucky ones. We did not have to be evacuated because we left the restaurant a
half an hour before the flood trapped people there. However our car was totaled, along with more
than 200 others parked on Main Street, which were trapped among the debris, or
floated into the river.

As
Ellicott City residents and volunteers tackle the long work of clearing out the
debris, cleaning up and rebuilding infrastructure, the long term impacts of the
flood become more evident.

The
U.S. National Climate Assessment, 2014 warned that “Heat waves, coastal flooding and river flooding will pose a growing
challenge to the NE region’s environmental, social, and economic systems. This
will increase vulnerability of the region’s residents, especially its most
disadvantaged populations.”

I wonder what will happen
to vulnerable people in the flooded areas of Ellicott City who aren’t being
helped and whose stories aren’t being told. Among them, the minimum-wage
earners who worked in the many locally owned little shops and restaurants. Even
before the flood, they struggled to make ends meet. What will happen to the
servers who led diners safely to the second, and then the third floor of the
restaurants as the water rose, only to realize that they themselves had lost
their livelihood, their car, and for some, a place to live?

This
flood is not just a local or short-term concern for the three mile radius of
Ellicott City. Its impacts are present in other areas of the County as the precious
and finite amount of potable water is released or redirected according to climatic
conditions. When Ellicott City or other river and coastal towns are inundated
with intense rainfall, other parts of the country are receiving less rain and are
becoming parched and tinder dry.When
natural disasters occur, disadvantaged populations are especially imperiled.In
floods or in drought, may we serve as people of faith, integrity, foresight, and
courage.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

PEC is grateful for our colleagues in creation care, Revs.
Bruce & Carolyn Gillette, co-pastors of Limestone Presbyterian Church in
Wilmington, Delaware. They are consistently
generous in sharing the fruits of their creative ministry both through
liturgical resourcing, contributing and supporting overtures - includingOn Amending “The Ministry of Members,” by adding “Caring
for God’s Creation- and through
hymnody in eco-justice.

Bruce reminds us that the PC(USA)
joined Pope Francis’ call for all Christians to support an ecumenical day of prayer
for the Care of Creation on September 1 annually at the 222nd
General Assembly. This day was first proposed by Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew. The September 1st
World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation is
to be included in the PC(USA) Program Calendars and
resources are to be made available online on the PC(USA) website. Thanks
also to the Presbytery of Sante Fe who submitted the overture “ On Communicating Gratitude for
and Study of the Encyclical “Laudato Si.”

Bruce and Carolyn have compiled the resources below hat include a
reflection from Dr. Bill Brown and a beautiful litany they have written that
blends the Lord’s Prayer with concern for God's creation.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 222nd (2016)
General Assembly voted to join “Pope Francis’ call
for all Christians to support an ecumenical day of prayer for the Care of
Creation on September 1 annually.”

Pope Francis recently proclaimed September 1st as
the “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation,” joining Ecumenical
Patriarch Dimitrios I of Constantinople, who earlier extended an invitation for
Christians to offer together ”every year on this date prayers and supplications
to the Maker of all, both as thanksgiving for the great gift of creation and as
petitions for its protection and salvation.”

Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit, the World Council of Churches General Secretary,
wrote: “Pope Francis’s ecumenical initiative reinforces the growing emphasis on
prayer for the care of creation among all the churches. We welcome the
opportunity to join our efforts with those of the Ecumenical Patriarch and now
the Catholic Church, and through prayer to sharpen our awareness and commitment
to God’s creation, ‘our common home,’ as Pope Francis has called it.”

All-powerful God, You are
present in the whole universe and in the smallest of your creatures. You
embrace with your tenderness all that exists. Pour out upon us the power of
your love, that we may protect life and beauty. Fill us with peace, that we may
live as brothers and sisters, harming no one. O God of the poor, Help us to
rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth, so precious in your eyes.
Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on
it, that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction. Touch the hearts of
those who look only for gain at the expense of the poor and the earth. Teach us
to discover the worth of each thing, to be filled with awe and
contemplation, to recognize that we are profoundly united with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light.

We thank you for being with
us each day. Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle for justice, love and
peace. Amen.

“Laudato Si’ (“Praise Be to You”): On Care for Our Common Home,” 2015 Encyclical Letter of Pope
Francis.

The Bible
and Caring for God’s Creation

The
fundamental mandate for creation care comes from Genesis 2:15, where God places
Adam in the garden to "till it and keep it" (NRSV). A better translation from the Hebrew is
"to serve it and to preserve it."
In Genesis 1:26-28, God blesses humankind with dominion over the
earth. This acknowledgement that
humanity is the most powerful species on earth does not, however, give license
to dominate and exploit the planet.
Indeed, the following verses affirm the right of animals to share in the
bounty of the earth's produce (Gen 1:29-30).
Human "dominion" as intended in Genesis is best practiced in
care for creation, in stewardship, which according to Genesis Noah fulfills
best by implementing God's first endangered species act. More-over, the great creation psalm of the
Psalter views humanity as one species among many animal species, all meant to
flourish together (Psalm 104:14-23). The
psalmist exclaims, “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have
made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (v. 24).

Scripture affirms that God
created the world in wisdom and out of love, and it is also out of love for the
world that God gave Christ to redeem it (John 3:16). In Christ “all things hold together”
(Colossians 1:17), and “every creature under heaven” is to receive God’s good
news (v. 23). According to Revelation,
God’s work in the world is “make all things new” (21:5), to bring about a new
creation that does not destroy the old but transforms it, renews it. If the church is the sign of the new
creation, then the church must lead the way in caring for creation.

---Dr.
William P. Brown, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament at
Columbia Theological Seminary, (Copied from the Biblical Background for the approved 2016 GA Overture to add “Caring for God’s Creation” to G-1.0304 The
Ministry of Members)

Caring for Creation and Life(Book of Order, W-7.5003)

God
calls the Church in the power of the Holy Spirit to participate in God’s work
of creation and preservation. God has given humankind awesome power and
perilous responsibility to rule and tame the earth, to sustain and reshape it,
to replenish and renew it.

In
worship Christians rejoice and give thanks to God, who gives and sustains the
created universe, the earth, all life, and all goods. They acknowledge God’s
command to be stewards. They confess their own failures in caring for creation
and life. They rejoice in the promise of the redemption and renewal of the
creation in Jesus Christ, proclaimed in the Word and sealed in the Sacraments.
They commit themselves to live as God’s stewards until the day when God will
make all things new. (W-1.0000)

As
stewards of God’s creation who hold the earth in trust, the people of God are
called to

a. use the earth’s resources responsibly without plundering, polluting, or
destroying,

b. develop technological methods and processes that work together with the
earth’s environment to preserve and enhance life,

c. produce and consume in ways that make available to all people what is
sufficient for life,

d. work for responsible attitudes and practices in procreation and
reproduction,

e. use and shape earth’s goods to create beauty, order, health, and peace
in ways that reflect God’s love for all creatures.

In
gratitude for the gifts of creation, the faithful bring material goods to God
in worship as a means of expressing praise, as a symbol of their self-offering,
and as a token of their commitment to share earth’s goods. (W-2.5000; W-3.3507;
W-5.5005; W-5.6000).

Kathleen Murphy is one
of the newest Eco-Stewards having participated this summer in the Seattle trip.
When she returned home, she kept the momentum going by rallying against a
corporate pipeline (Mountain Valley Pipeline) to be constructed in her home
state of Virginia.

It’s easy to get bogged down by the enormity of it all. The
doomsday predictions, the destruction of our natural resources, conflicting
interests furthering stereotypes of supporters on each side, and most of all -
the feeling of being so small that you, one individual, cannot make a
difference and your voice will be drowned out by all the noise.

When we feel overwhelmed it’s easier to retreat, simply
throw up our hands and say the problem is too big. The noise is deafening. Who
will hear me, even if I yell?

During my time with the other eco-focused young adults on
our Eco-Stewards trip to Seattle, I learned many things that continue to shape
my perspective and daily habits. We met with members from the Lummi Nation, a
Native tribe living in the far northwest portion of Washington State. The Lummi
have been in this area of Washington for generations and are very connected to
the waterways in the area, mainly the Salish Sea. These waters are sacred
fishing grounds for the Lummi. The immense respect their people have for the
water influences the life of the tribe and the life of each individual. This
respect, sadly, is not a part of the culture in corporate oil and coal export.
Corporate interests have pillaged the Lummi’s sacred waterways for oil and
coal. Luckily, the Lummi were courageous enough to fight, and defeat, plans to
install another massive export facility.

Corporate interests plan to do similar things here, in
Virginia, by building a natural gas pipeline that runs through some of
Virginia’s most pristine mountainous landscapes. Our governor has decided to
support the pipeline to the shock and disappointment of many citizens. Our
disappointment turned into action.

A number of community groups and non-profits organized
a “March on the Mansion” to show our opposition to the pipeline. Even on a
98-degree day, with the heat index well over 100, we took to the streets of
Richmond in a physical manifestation of resistance. Conservative estimates say the crowd was 600 strong. I think it was
more. We marched from the James River, which is being polluted by the region’s
electric utility monopoly, past the electric utility’s headquarters, through
Capital Square to the Governor’s Mansion. We were loud, we had signs, we had
community.

When you think that the noise is too loud for you to be heard, do not retreat.
This is too great an issue to retreat. God’s Creation is at stake. So, when you
feel like you will be drowned out, join others and yell together. The sum of
all of our voices can, and will, overcome the noise.

Sustainability Showcased in the Environmental Studies Center at Oberlin
College in Ohio

by Nancy Corson
Carter

In 2010 Oberlin College celebrated the 10th
anniversary of the Adam Joseph Lewis Center (AJLC) for Environmental
Studies.Architect Magazine recognized it then as the most important green
building constructed in the last 30 years.

This July, I joined the thousands of visitors who have
toured and learned firsthand about this special building. I’d hoped to see it
since the time I met David Orr, the plenary science speaker at PRC/PEC’s 2002
national conference at Linfield College, in Oregon. Orr oversaw the process of
creating the AJLC as then-director of the Environmental Studies Program at
Oberlin; it manifests his belief that “Our job as people of faith is to build a
world that reconnects,” a world with “architecture as a form of theology.”

Besides such sustainable choices as solar and geothermal
energy provisions and recycled and biodegradable materials, the building
features a “Living Machine.” This is an ecologically engineered system that
combines elements of conventional wastewater technology with the purification
processes of wetland ecosystems—plants with roots supporting living bio-filters
like snails and bacteria—to treat and recycle the building’s wastewater. A
weather station monitors real-time conditions and trends for a variety of
environmental variables.

The landcape is an integral part of the AJLC; it includes an
orchard and permaculture garden, paths, and benches.

Colin Koffel, an Oberlin graduate, portrays the
building’s wide educational reach: “The Lewis Center isn’t just home to
environmental studies. I also took classes in economics and cinema studies
there, and it helped bring discussions of sustainability into those
fields.” The building, true to its
inclusion of community input since the beginning, has become a center for many
local events. Clearly the design team led by William McDonough + Partners
created a building that will adapt and change as more sustainable, hopeful
solutions unfold.